Magician Dynamo has told how he got his revenge on school bullies with his huge success.

The star, 31, real name Steven Frayne, grew up on a tough housing estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and as a thin, sickly child, was targeted by bullies.

Dynamo told Radio Times magazine that his gruelling school experience made him who he is today.

The illusionist, who is said to count David Beckham, Will Smith, Jay Z and Sir Paul McCartney as fans, came to magic when his great-grandfather taught him tricks he had picked up in the Royal Navy in the Second World War.

He said: "Without it (bullying), I wouldn't be where I am today.

"If I hadn't been stuck in wheelie bins and shoved down hills, I would never have got into magic.

"I would never have asked my grandpa for help and he would never have shown me what he did."

He said of his great-grandfather: "He used to perform stuff for me but he'd never tell me how he did it... It took a long time to get it out of him. And at the time they were just things to scare bullies off.

"So, I'm kind of thanking the bullies in a way. The best form of revenge is success, isn't it? Sometimes I get tweets off people who claim to have been my friends at school.

"But they weren't - they were the ones pushing me down the steps and doing stupid stuff to me.

"But it's gonna happen, innit? With success, it's not you that's changed, it's people around you that have changed."

Bending back his finger in a seemingly impossible way, he added: "If the kids threatened to break my bones I'd say, 'You can't break my bones, I'm invincible,' then do that. So, that'd scare them and freak 'em out a little bit."

He said he was calling time on his TV ratings hit Dynamo: Magician Impossible to "keep the mystique".

"Look at Paul Daniels. I think his only mistake was that he stayed on the telly for a bit too long and overstayed his welcome, so people don't necessarily remember his amazing magic," he said.

"They talk about his chat shows and his one-liners, and I think that ruined the mystery of the magic for him."